Opioid and non-opioid mechanisms of footshock-induced analgesia: role of the spinal dorsolateral funiculus.

Exposure to inescapable footshock causes either an opioid or non-opioid mediated analgesia in the rat depending on the temporal parameters of its administration. Lesions of the spinal dorsolateral funiculus significantly reduce both the opioid and non-opioid forms of this footshock-induced analgesia. Thus, these two neurochemically discrete pain-inhibitory systems appear to depend on the integrity of the same descending path, one known to be activated by morphine and by analgesic brain stimulation.